By night the Rue Chartres is now but a murky fissure, from which the groping wayfarer sees, flung against the sky, the tangled filigree of Moorish iron balconies. The old houses of monsieur stand yet, indomitable against the century, but their essence is gone. The street is one of ghosts to whosoever can see them.
A faint heartbeat of the street"s ancient glory still survives in a corner occupied by the Cafe Carabine d"Or. Once men gathered there to plot against kings, and to warn presidents. They do so yet, but they are not the same kind of men. A bra.s.s b.u.t.ton will scatter these; those would have set their faces against an army. Above the door hangs the sign board, upon which has been depicted a vast animal of unfamiliar species. In the act of firing upon this monster is represented an un.o.btrusive human levelling an obtrusive gun, once the colour of bright gold. Now the legend above the picture is faded beyond conjecture; the gun"s relation to the t.i.tle is a matter of faith; the menaced animal, wearied of the long aim of the hunter, has resolved itself into a shapeless blot.
The place is known as "Antonio"s," as the name, white upon the red-lit transparency, and gilt upon the windows, attests. There is a promise in "Antonio"; a justifiable expectancy of savoury things in oil and pepper and wine, and perhaps an angel"s whisper of garlic. But the rest of the name is "O"Riley." Antonio O"Riley!
The Carabine d"Or is an ignominious ghost of the Rue Chartres. The cafe where Bienville and Conti dined, where a prince has broken bread, is become a "family ristaurant."
Its customers are working men and women, almost to a unit.
Occasionally you will see chorus girls from the cheaper theatres, and men who follow avocations subject to quick vicissitudes; but at Antonio"s--name rich in Bohemian promise, but tame in fulfillment-- manners debonair and gay are toned down to the "family" standard.
Should you light a cigarette, mine host will touch you on the "arrum"
and remind you that the proprieties are menaced. "Antonio" entices and beguiles from fiery legend without, but "O"Riley" teaches decorum within.
It was at this restaurant that Lorison first saw the girl. A flashy fellow with a predatory eye had followed her in, and had advanced to take the other chair at the little table where she stopped, but Lorison slipped into the seat before him. Their acquaintance began, and grew, and now for two months they had sat at the same table each evening, not meeting by appointment, but as if by a series of fortuitous and happy accidents. After dining, they would take a walk together in one of the little city parks, or among the panoramic markets where exhibits a continuous vaudeville of sights and sounds.
Always at eight o"clock their steps led them to a certain street corner, where she prettily but firmly bade him good night and left him. "I do not live far from here," she frequently said, "and you must let me go the rest of the way alone."
But now Lorison had discovered that he wanted to go the rest of the way with her, or happiness would depart, leaving, him on a very lonely corner of life. And at the same time that he made the discovery, the secret of his banishment from the society of the good laid its finger in his face and told him it must not be.
Man is too thoroughly an egoist not to be also an egotist; if he love, the object shall know it. During a lifetime he may conceal it through stress of expediency and honour, but it shall bubble from his dying lips, though it disrupt a neighbourhood. It is known, however, that most men do not wait so long to disclose their pa.s.sion. In the case of Lorison, his particular ethics positively forbade him to declare his sentiments, but he must needs dally with the subject, and woo by innuendo at least.
On this night, after the usual meal at the Carabine d"Or, he strolled with his companion down the dim old street toward the river.
The Rue Chartres perishes in the old Place d"Armes. The ancient Cabildo, where Spanish justice fell like hail, faces it, and the Cathedral, another provincial ghost, overlooks it. Its centre is a little, iron-railed park of flowers and immaculate gravelled walks, where citizens take the air of evenings. Pedestalled high above it, the general sits his cavorting steed, with his face turned stonily down the river toward English Turn, whence come no more Britons to bombard his cotton bales.
Often the two sat in this square, but to-night Lorison guided her past the stone-stepped gate, and still riverward. As they walked, he smiled to himself to think that all he knew of her--except that be loved her--was her name, Norah Greenway, and that she lived with her brother. They had talked about everything except themselves. Perhaps her reticence had been caused by his.
They came, at length, upon the levee, and sat upon a great, prostrate beam. The air was pungent with the dust of commerce. The great river slipped yellowly past. Across it Algiers lay, a longitudinous black bulk against a vibrant electric haze sprinkled with exact stars.
The girl was young and of the piquant order. A certain bright melancholy pervaded her; she possessed an untarnished, pale prettiness doomed to please. Her voice, when she spoke, dwarfed her theme. It was the voice capable of investing little subjects with a large interest. She sat at ease, bestowing her skirts with the little womanly touch, serene as if the begrimed pier were a summer garden.
Lorison poked the rotting boards with his cane.
He began by telling her that he was in love with some one to whom he durst not speak of it. "And why not?" she asked, accepting swiftly his fatuous presentation of a third person of straw. "My place in the world," he answered, "is none to ask a woman to share. I am an outcast from honest people; I am wrongly accused of one crime, and am, I believe, guilty of another."
Thence he plunged into the story of his abdication from society. The story, pruned of his moral philosophy, deserves no more than the slightest touch. It is no new tale, that of the gambler"s declension.
During one night"s sitting he lost, and then had imperilled a certain amount of his employer"s money, which, by accident, he carried with him. He continued to lose, to the last wager, and then began to gain, leaving the game winner to a somewhat formidable sum. The same night his employer"s safe was robbed. A search was had; the winnings of Lorison were found in his room, their total forming an accusative nearness to the sum purloined. He was taken, tried and, through incomplete evidence, released, s.m.u.tched with the sinister _devoirs_ of a disagreeing jury.
"It is not in the unjust accusation," he said to the girl, "that my burden lies, but in the knowledge that from the moment I staked the first dollar of the firm"s money I was a criminal--no matter whether I lost or won. You see why it is impossible for me to speak of love to her."
"It is a sad thing," said Norah, after a little pause, "to think what very good people there are in the world."
"Good?" said Lorison.
"I was thinking of this superior person whom you say you love. She must be a very poor sort of creature."
"I do not understand."
"Nearly," she continued, "as poor a sort of creature as yourself."
"You do not understand," said Lorison, removing his hat and sweeping back his fine, light hair. "Suppose she loved me in return, and were willing to marry me. Think, if you can, what would follow. Never a day would pa.s.s but she would be reminded of her sacrifice. I would read a condescension in her smile, a pity even in her affection, that would madden me. No. The thing would stand between us forever. Only equals should mate. I could never ask her to come down upon my lower plane."
An arc light faintly shone upon Lorison"s face. An illumination from within also pervaded it. The girl saw the rapt, ascetic look; it was the face either of Sir Galahad or Sir Fool.
"Quite starlike," she said, "is this unapproachable angel. Really too high to be grasped."
"By me, yes."
She faced him suddenly. "My dear friend, would you prefer your star fallen?" Lorison made a wide gesture.
"You push me to the bald fact," he declared; "you are not in sympathy with my argument. But I will answer you so. If I could reach my particular star, to drag it down, I would not do it; but if it were fallen, I would pick it up, and thank Heaven for the privilege."
They were silent for some minutes. Norah shivered, and thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket. Lorison uttered a remorseful exclamation.
"I"m not cold," she said. "I was just thinking. I ought to tell you something. You have selected a strange confidante. But you cannot expect a chance acquaintance, picked up in a doubtful restaurant, to be an angel."
"Norah!" cried Lorison.
"Let me go on. You have told me about yourself. We have been such good friends. I must tell you now what I never wanted you to know.
I am--worse than you are. I was on the stage . . . I sang in the chorus . . . I was pretty bad, I guess . . . I stole diamonds from the prima donna . . . they arrested me . . . I gave most of them up, and they let me go . . . I drank wine every night . . . a great deal . . . I was very wicked, but--"
Lorison knelt quickly by her side and took her hands.
"Dear Norah!" he said, exultantly. "It is you, it is you I love!
You never guessed it, did you? "Tis you I meant all the time. Now I can speak. Let me make you forget the past. We have both suffered; let us shut out the world, and live for each other. Norah, do you hear me say I love you?"
"In spite of--"
"Rather say because of it. You have come out of your past n.o.ble and good. Your heart is an angel"s. Give it to me."
"A little while ago you feared the future too much to even speak."
"But for you; not for myself. Can you love me?"
She cast herself, wildly sobbing, upon his breast.
"Better than life--than truth itself--than everything."
"And my own past," said Lorison, with a note of solicitude--"can you forgive and--"
"I answered you that," she whispered, "when I told you I loved you."
She leaned away, and looked thoughtfully at him. "If I had not told you about myself, would you have--would you--"
"No," he interrupted; "I would never have let you know I loved you. I would never have asked you this--Norah, will you be my wife?"
She wept again.
"Oh, believe me; I am good now--I am no longer wicked! I will be the best wife in the world. Don"t think I am--bad any more. If you do I shall die, I shall die!"
While he was consoling, her, she brightened up, eager and impetuous.
"Will you marry me to-night?" she said. "Will you prove it that way.